The present disclosure relates to heat transfer systems and methods in industrial settings. More particularly, it relates to industrial heat transfer units for providing simultaneous heating and cooling.
In industrial processes, process fluids (e.g., refrigerant) are usually required for adding heat energy in some sub-processes and absorbing heat energy in other sub-processes. Warming the process fluid to that it can supply heat energy in sub-processes typically requires natural gas or other independent heat source. Similarly, cooling the process fluid so that it can absorb heat energy in sub-processes typically requires some type of refrigeration cycle.
Some heat transfer systems aim to use some of the heat from one process fluid to another in an industrial process without independent heat energy sources or sinks, but such systems use a central energy storage mechanism. One such energy storage mechanism is an energy field. In a typical heat pump application (such as a geothermal heating/cooling system) the construction of the energy field can exceed 50% of the total project cost. In addition, energy fields require a significant amount of physical space that in many potential applications is simply not available. Furthermore, transferring energy into and out of the centralized storage system itself requires energy reducing the overall system efficiency.
More recently, heat transfer systems or modules have been devised to permit the transfer of heat energy from one process fluid to another in an industrial process without the need for an energy field or centralized energy storage. For example, U.S. Publication No. 2011/0239666 (Allen et al.), the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein, describes heat transfer modules well-suited for industrial applications that draw heat from one process fluid into circulating refrigerant in an evaporator heat exchanger and supply that heat to a different process fluid in a condenser heat exchanger.
The heat transfer modules of Allen et al. are highly promising. Any improvements to these and similar heat transfer systems will be well-received.